Facilities

The second floor of the Crawford Art Studios is dedicated entirely to painting facilities.

The studio provides a well lit and ventilated space for introductory through upper level painting classes. Advanced painters work independently and have personal work spaces within the studio.

Photography classes are held on the top floor of the Colby College Museum of Art’s Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion, which opened in 2013. The studio includes 16 iMac workstations, three large-format Epson printers, and five Epson scanners capable of scanning up to 8×10 film. There is also a shooting studio with north light and lighting equipment. The analog part of the studio includes black-and-white film processing areas, a color-film minilab processor, and a large darkroom with 12 enlargers capable of printing from 35mm to 4×5 film.

The Print and Digital Media curriculum is guided by conceptual exploration and the development of technical expertise. A range of print processes are offered: relief (linoleum, woodcut, jig saw and laser cut wood blocks), copper intaglio, polyester plate lithography, monoprint, and collagraph. At Colby we are committed to incorporating emerging technologies and techniques that push the boundaries of printmaking and create a safe environment.

The Print and Digital Media studio has three high-quality printing presses. The space is equipped to support “green” printmaking practices that create a safe work environment for Colby students. Students also have access to design software and laser printers in the Bixler Art & Music Library’s Media Lab. A short walk from the studio is Colby’s Mule Works Innovation Lab in Miller Library, which is equipped with a Pro Series Full Spectrum Laser Cutter and a 3D scanner and printer.

The first floor of the Crawford Art Studios in the Bixler building is dedicated to sculpture. Students are deeply engaged with a materials practice that includes clay, plaster, wax, wood, metals, and stone. For an introduction to the sculpture facility and curriculum, see this video.

The drawing studio is located on the second floor of Bixler. Students work from observation in Drawing I to establish an understanding of graphic language, a variety of drawing methods, and their own sense of personal expression. Students may go on to take Drawing II (spring) and/or Figure Drawing and Anatomy (Jan Plan).

The studio foundations program consists of two courses: Introduction to Studio Art and Visual Thinking. These are taught on the top floor of the Alfond-Lunder Pavilion in the Colby College Museum of Art.

Open to students throughout the college, the studio foundations program provide a thorough understanding of the organizational and visual components of two-dimensional and three-dimensional design. Projects, completed in a range of media, emphasize discovery through experimentation and problem solving.

Bixler Art and Music Library supports teaching, learning, research through its excellent collections and services tailored to the needs of the arts programs at Colby College. Research is supported with over 70,000 print publications in the arts (books, periodicals, exhibition catalogs), fine arts image databases, an extensive collection of video and sound recordings, and an impressive suite of online journals and article databases for in-depth art research. Special collections include over 800 hours of artist talks from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Lecture Archive of audio CDs and transcripts.

The Bixler Library Media Lab supports student learning and digital instruction. The facility has 16 iMac computers, printers, Epson scanners and a KIC Bookeye 4 high-resolution, large-format book scanner. It also features a seminar room for instruction and image viewing.

Fannie Ouyang, the Visual and Interdisciplinary Arts Librarian, provides expert art reference, collections research and library instruction services for the Colby College Libraries.

Founded in 1959, the Colby College Museum of Art is a teaching museum, a destination for American art, and a place for education and engagement with local, national, and global communities. Part of Colby College, the museum is located in Waterville, Maine, and actively contributes to Colby’s curricular and co-curricular programs and to the region’s quality of life. It inspires connections between art and people through distinctive exhibitions, programs, and publications and through an outstanding collection that emphasizes American art and contemporary art within holdings that span cultures and time periods. The Colby Museum actively seeks to increase diversity, equity, inclusion, and access across all of its work and to advocate for the community value of art, artists, and museums in engaging with today’s most vital questions.